Friday’s Market Wrap

The USD started last Friday on a bullish footing, after the reversal on Thursday, following a retreat earlier last week. It kept gaining against all major currencies. So, let’s see where it will be heading today, whether the Buck will continue the march higher or if it will reverse the course. Although the calendar today is empty.

Last Friday, the main economic release was the manufacturing report from the US and Europe as well as European services. Most of the data came out above expectations, showing that the global economy is doing pretty well, despite the conflict in Ukraine and the deteriorating sentiment. Both sectors remain in very good shape and they’re expanding pretty fast.

But, the USD was the only currency that benefited from that. Crude oil turned bearish a well last week, signaling that it is not going to run much higher from $100.

The Data Today

Today the economic calendar is pretty light, with some countries still being on a bank holiday weekend for the Orthodox Easter. The USD still has the upper hand starting the week, after two strong bullish days at the end of last week. The JPY has stopped declining, with USD/JPY trading below 130, although buyers might resume the uptrend again this week and push above this major level.

In the European session, the German Ifo business climate report will be released which is expected to cool off further due to the tensions in the east, after cooling off in March as well. Although, it is not impacting the economy much, as services and manufacturing reports for March showed. In the US session, the Bank of Canada Governor Macklem will hold a speech, but it might not have much impact on the CAD if he doesn’t touch on the future of the monetary policy too heavily.

Forex Signal Update

The FX Leaders Team had several trading signals last Friday, all of which closed in profit. We decided to go with the flow and go long on the USD since it was already on a bullish trend from the previous day, which resulted to be quite profitable for us.

EUR/USD  – Sell Signal

EUR/USD has been on a downtrend since last summer and has broken below 1.10, but it made a surprising jump on Wednesday, after comments from ECB member de Guiindos on rate hikes starting in July. But other central banks have already started to hike interest rates, so the jump ended at the 200 SMA (purple) and this pair started to reverse lower.

We opened a sell signal on Thursday during the reversal, which closed in profit. On Friday we decided to go short again as the decline was precipitating, with EUR/USD giving back most of the gains.

USD/CHF – Buy Signal

USD/CHF  has also been bullish, so we have been taking advantage of this uptrend on this pair and have opened a few buy signals. The last one was last Friday, which we opened as the price was bouncing off the 20 SMA (gray) on the H4 chart, after a retreat. This trade hit take profit as buyers pushed up, closing the week near the highs.

Cryptocurrency Update

We have two buy crypto signals as we went long on THORChain RUNE and Terra LUNA coins last week. The RUNE/USD signal is in red at the moment since this cryptocurrency has reversed lower, while LUNA/USD is well in profit as the LUNA token has resumed the uptrend already.

We are thinking about buying Litecoin. since this cryptocurrency is trading just above the $100 support level, which is a strong support zone. So we are placing a buy pending order down there.